


no water in the water fountain

by dayevsphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Era (Phandom), ADHD, Autism, Domestic, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, references to sex idk the difference between teen and mature and at this point im too afraid to ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayevsphil/pseuds/dayevsphil
Summary: Dan sees it when they film together. The helpless giggling as they talk about absolute nonsense, picking up on each other's trains of thought without issue, getting weirder and weirder because it makes the other person laugh so much - and because it is so true to themselves.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 142





	no water in the water fountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chickenfree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfree/gifts).



> wow chicken your mom lets you have TWO birthday presents???????????? this is a weird cousin of chicken's fic "no side on the sidewalk" (in that we deal w similar brain stuff, but they're not actually the same universe at all lmao), go read that if you haven't yet it's really good!!

"Did you ever feel like society had rules that everyone already seemed to know, but whenever you asked they'd act like they never had to be taught?"

Phil is sitting on his floor and playing around with something he'd found under his bed. Near as Dan can tell from his precarious perch on the desk chair, it's some kind of clicky toy. He hasn't done a whole lot of poking around Phil's room or anything, but he's been around enough to watch Phil get distracted anytime he tries to tidy up.

They hadn't really been having a conversation, Dan supposes, but the last thing they'd been discussing was whether or not sharks would be scarier if they were mammals, so he needs a moment to reconfigure himself. 

"Yeah, I guess so," Dan says slowly. He's trying not to spin too much in Phil's desk chair. He doesn't want to fall off again.

"It's like I got to school and the rules were different all of a sudden," says Phil.

Dan can understand that much. He doesn't talk about his past much with Phil unless he's sad on Skype, because he's got much better things to focus on when he's here.

"Yeah," Dan says again.

"Things are still like that, sometimes." Phil says it like it's a secret, like he thinks he's saying something Dan will think less of him for. "I'm done school now, and the rules have all changed again, and other people seem to just… get it. They're scared, but they get it."

Dan thinks of his parents. "I don't think that's true. I think a lot of people just pretend they know what the fuck they're doing and trick themselves into believing it's true."

"Maybe," says Phil. He doesn't sound like he believes it. "But it's not just the big stuff, y'know? It's kind of everything."

"What do you mean?"

For a long moment, Phil just thinks it over. He's not great at elaborating on his feelings in general, so Dan hopes that's why he's quiet. The other explanation would be that Phil is deciding how much of himself to edit down, like Dan finds himself doing way more in person than he does online.

"I mean," says Phil, still clicking his toy. "I mean it's everything, sometimes. People just know how to do stuff or act like there's these rules in place and I just… don't always get it."

"Can you give me, like," Dan gestures vaguely, "an example?"

Phil shakes his head. "If I think of something specific I'll point it out, I guess. I was just thinking."

"So that's why I smell plastic burning," Dan teases.

When Phil laughs, Dan slides onto the floor with him. He wants to crawl into Phil's lap and make him laugh some more, but Phil is digging around under his bed again, so he settles for leaning against Phil while he shows off old trinkets.

\--

Phil makes this face of absolute disgust when he encounters wet food in the sink or unfamiliar textures on furniture or anything sticky, and Dan always finds it adorable. It makes him laugh. Phil almost always laughs along with him, but sometimes he's eerily quiet. Like now, when Phil has put his hand into a mostly-dried maple syrup spill on the counter.

"Aw, what's the problem?" Dan teases as Phil runs for the sink. "Did the syrup stain attack you?" 

"Whatever, Dan," says Phil. He sounds tense, right on the edge of snappish, and he washes his hands thoroughly before he turns back around. "Sorry."

It takes a lot more than a _whatever_ to make Dan feel chastised, but he's not tactless enough to keep teasing. He leans against the opposite counter and shrugs. "No, don't apologise. I was being a dick. You okay?"

Dan feels a little stupid, asking if Phil is okay after something so small, but Phil is picking at the skin of his thumb as though he's still trying to get rid of the syrup remnants. Phil shrugs, too.

"It felt really fucking bad," Phil tells him, careful about his words again. Dan likes it best when Phil forgets to be careful and just says what he's thinking. It's been happening more and more often ever since Phil invited Dan into his home for the first time. Dan has opened up so easily for this boy, and sometimes he has to remind himself that it's okay that Phil works at a different pace than he does. 

He waits for Phil to say more, to explain the reason behind these little anxieties, but he doesn't.

"What's so bad about it?"

Phil makes another face. This disgust is more mild, the way he gets when he thinks about blue cheese or has to clean come off their bodies. "I dunno how to… it just sucks."

That's not helpful. Then again, Dan doesn't expect much helpfulness from Phil in most situations.

Dan walks over to the offending syrup and puts his hand in it. The syrup has hardened into something that isn't even viscous anymore, but it's still soft enough to squish under Dan's palm.

"Okay," he says, wrinkling his nose. "It's not _good_. I think I get it. Maybe not to the, like, extent that you're feeling it, but. I kinda get it."

Phil still doesn't offer any further explanation, but Dan doesn't mind. He hasn't seen Phil get so suddenly overwhelmed by something so small before, but it's like seeing through another layer in Phil's emotional guards, and that's never going to be something that Dan complains about.

By the time Dan has washed his own hands and wiped down the Lesters' kitchen counter, the tension has completely left Phil's body. The topic changes, and Dan lets himself get swept along with it.

\--

Dan unintentionally times how long it takes for Phil to tie up his shoes. It just takes so much longer than he expects, and he can't help counting the seconds in the back of his mind. They're both sat on the steps, the house quiet around them. As nice as Phil's family is, Dan likes it best when they're not here.

Phil stands up with a set expression, like he expects Dan to ask questions or laugh at him.

There's not really anything that Dan wants to ask, and he really doesn't feel like laughing, so he just smiles reassuringly and asks what Phil wants to grab for lunch.

\--

There isn't any music, but Phil's fingers are tapping to a beat. They're resting on Dan's clavicle and tapping something that might as well be Morse code for all the sense it makes to Dan.

Maybe it should be annoying, but it isn't. Dan's brain zeroes in on the tapping like it's the only thing in the room, and yet he still doesn't mind. He understands the impulse behind it, deep in his own core being, so it would be hypocritical of him to be frustrated by it.

"You doing a song?" he murmurs, not wanting to startle Phil into stopping.

Phil's fingers do pause, but only for a moment. He huffs a laugh against Dan's bare shoulder. "Yeah. The Buffy theme."

"Mm, you like Buffy more than you like me."

"In some ways, I like Buffy better than I like anybody."

Dan laughs. Phil presses his lips to Dan's shoulder, soft and sweet, and he keeps tapping.

\--

Dan sees it when they film together. It's there, in the parts they keep and in the parts they chop. The helpless giggling as they talk about absolute nonsense, picking up on each other's trains of thought without issue, getting weirder and weirder because it makes the other person laugh so much - and because it is so true to themselves. Dan sees it in his own eyes; the question, behind all the adoration that he never really manages to turn off. _Are you like me? Are you like me?_

\--

Dan has known for his whole life that his brain doesn't work the same as everyone else's. It hadn't been as obvious at home, where his mum and Adrian had the same thought processes and quirks that he did, but school had been an absolute nightmare. Well, school had been a nightmare for a lot of reasons.

"Did you like school?" Dan finds himself asking into the quiet of the lounge. He and Phil have spent more time on the sofa this visit, because there is nobody else home to come downstairs and see them. They aren't doing anything wrong or sexy or whatever - they're just on opposite sides of the couch on their own laptops - but Dan can't help the constant paranoia that comes from hiding for so long. As convinced as Phil is that his parents will be cool, neither of them want to give anything obvious away. 

"Er," says Phil. He blinks a couple of times, like he's trying to center himself back into conversation. "I liked parts of school, I guess."

"I hated it," Dan offers. "It was hell."

"Why?" Phil asks, curiosity overcoming whatever focus he'd had on his screen.

"Mostly the other kids," says Dan, picking at his sleeve. "They were all dillweeds, y'know, and teachers didn't fucking help. Most of them hated me too."

It's an easy thing to say to Phil, because it's Phil. Dan doesn't edit himself the same way around Phil as he does around so many other people, not anymore. It still happens when he doesn't want to explain himself, but for the most part he feels like Phil won't judge him the way that other people do.

He hopes that Phil feels the same about him. He knows that he's seeing parts of Phil that nobody else does, sure, but he also feels that disconnect when Phil's guards are up, and he can't help wondering if that's going to be forever.

"Why would teachers hate you?" Phil asks. There's something like genuine sympathy on his face, but Dan had seen the moment that his expression had shifted. Like it was purposeful. Like he had to remind himself how he was supposed to react. Dan knows what that feels like, because it's something that he deals with every single day of his own life. He almost never knows what people expect from him, has to put on faces like he's still in drama.

So Dan is honest. He says, "Oh, because I never acted the way I was supposed to. I was loud and obnoxious and hated doing work even though I understood it all just fine."

Phil's lips curve into a smile, and that doesn't seem like something he has to remind himself to do. "You're still all those things, and I like it."

"That's because I suck your dick," Dan says, deadpan.

"No, it's because you're," says Phil, but then his brow furrows. He struggles to find the words for a few moments, and Dan has to bite his tongue so that he doesn't interrupt. "You're nice. And really funny. I have fun with you. I think it's okay that you're loud and obnoxious, because I like it."

Frankly, that's the only thing that really matters to Dan. Phil's opinion means so much to him. And it's good that he isn't trying to lie and say that Dan _isn't_ any of those things.

"So you like that I'm annoying and hyperactive and don't apply myself?" Dan teases, pulling out some of the words he'd heard throughout his childhood.

"Yeah," Phil says simply.

That's good enough for Dan.

\--

Something on the telly makes a sudden, high-pitched noise, and they both jump. Phil puts his hands over his ears and presses, just for a moment, before he takes the remote and changes the channel. The ringing of the noise still echoes around Dan's skull, reverberating, making him feel like his whole body is a gong.

They don't talk about it.

Dan's brain is weird. Phil's brain seems like it's weird, too, in both similar and opposite ways. When they're together, Dan feels less like he's an outsider against the rest of the world and more like it's okay that he isn't normal. Phil helps him to embrace it.

There are definitely words for it. There are words for everything.

But Dan hates words, hates all those labels for things that make him feel like he's drowning, so he doesn't bother figuring them out. It doesn't really matter.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to andrea and puddle for the last minute beta and the assuaging of my constant anxiety, thank you to chicken for being inspiring as fuck and talking to me about weird brain stuff all the time, and thank you to all of you for giving this a shot!


End file.
